MESSAGE FROM TMA CEO CELIA BESORE • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Measuring Trust Why is it so important and how to go about it In an industry where our customers rely on us 24/7 to protect their life and property, trust is of critical importance. A relationship of trust with public safety is also of great importance. There has been significant research undertaken by organizations and consultancy firms in relation to the trust consumers place in the businesses from which they buy goods and services. One such organization is Trust Across America (TAA), which helps to enhance trustworthy behavior in organizations. One of their initiatives identified that the TAA top 10 most trustworthy U.S. public companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 30%. With the most recent world-wide Edelman Trust Barometer highlighting how businesses are now more trusted (61%), than government (53%), NGOs (57%), and media (51%), it is critically important for companies to be purposeful in how they manage trust as a key performance indicator. The consulting company Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte) defines trust as the foundation of a TMA Dispatch | Summer 2022
meaningful relationship, which is built through actions that “demonstrate a high degree of competence and the right intent, which result in demonstrated capability (possessing the means to meet expectations); reliability (consistently and dependably delivering upon promises made); transparency (openly sharing information, motives, and choices in plain language); and humanity (genuinely caring for the experience and well-being of others). The Trust Framework A February 2023 Deloitte article provides a framework to help you measure and manage such an important strategic and critical asset. Based upon a statistical study of over 3,000 executives around the world, Deloitte identified 17 domains (many interrelated) that can be measured and influenced to increase the level of trust among your stakeholders. 17 Domains Identified by Deloitte as Critical to Trust: (in order of importance to building trust according to the executives surveyed) • Product quality • Customer experience
Financial integrity and health Authentic and resilient leadership Innovation, intelligence, and technology Ethics Culture and purpose Compliance Data integrity and protection Strategic governance Workforce experience Conduct Digital engagement Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) Environmental social and governance (ESG) Cyber Crime (fraud and abuse)
As I mentioned before, the domains are interrelated. For example, “cybersecurity actions can be closely linked with data privacy and protection, whereas ethics can be reflected in an organization’s culture, values, and mission statement.” The importance of each domain to building a company’s trust is also related to the industry in which it operates. For instance, a bank will rate financial integrity and health, crime, data integrity, conduct and ethics higher than other domains. The importance of each domain is also a function of the perspectives and expectations of stakeholders. Employees’ congruence between their values and their employer’s culture and purpose, for example, will impact their trust and therefore their commitment to the organization. Companies tend to spend more effort in building up actions in domains where they feel they have more familiarity. In the Deloitte study, crime showed up as the top domain that executives felt more capable of controlling, due to their familiarity with actions geared to avoiding it; in contrast, innovation, CEO, continued on page 6 [5]
